Dilly Beans

I put up a batch of Dilly Beans the other day. I have never had these before, but the recipe sounded good so thought I would give it a try. The recipe calls for either a head of fresh dill or a teaspoon of dill seed in each pint jar. I went out to the garden armed with my kitchen scissors to snip the dill heads... once out there among my jungle of 4 foot tall dill weed, I realized that I didn't know what stage of dill heads is generally used. I was pretty sure that it wasn't dry heads with the seeds... but do I want dill heads still in bloom or with green seeds? Back inside I went to call Mom. Dill heads still in bloom was her answer. This will actually give more dill flavor than dill seeds, remarkably.

After cutting about two pounds of beautiful green beans into four inch pieces, in went the dill head, a clove of garlic and some cayenne pepper into each pint jar. Finished that off with the pickling solution and a water bath for ten minutes. I was surprized in that my new "So Easy to Preserve" Book called for processing in a water bath as opposed to pressure canning. I guess there is enough acid in the amount of vinegar to make it safe.

I will wait until Mom comes for her visit to give these a try.

Update: tried the Dilly Beans. YUM! The beans were nice and crisp and the cayenne gave it a real kick! Plenty of dill flavor and the garlic a nice background.

Sweet Vidalia Onion Relish

On the 4th, my MIL brought us fifty pounds of Vidalia onions. I had mentioned to her that back in April or May DH had made a business trip out to Florida, passing through Georgia on the way. I had asked him to bring me a fifty pound bag of Vidalias from Georgia. As it turns out, the timing was a little early for the Vidalia season. So now, here it is July and I have my onions!

I have a new book, 'So Easy to Preserve', published by the Cooperative Extension of the University of Georgia. I am real excited about the information in this book! I found out about it at a class on preserving the harvest taught by Beverly Coombs of the University of Illinois Cooperative Extension Service. She calls it her canning and preserving bible, and I can see why... but you will have to buy the book and see for yourself!

Here is the recipe for Vidalia Onion Relish that I made today...
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Vidalia Onion Relish

1 1/2 gallons ground Vidalia onions (about 20 lbs)
1/2 cup [canning] salt
1 quart apple cider vinegar (5%)
1 teaspoon turmeric
4 teaspoons pickling spice
4 tablespoons pimento, chopped
4 1/2 cups sugar

Grind enough Vidalia onions to yield 1 1/2 gallons, add 1/2 cup salt and let stand 30 minutes. Squeeze juice from onion-salt mixture and discard juice. The pickling spice in cheesecloth. Combine onions, vinegar, sugar, turmeric, spice bag, and pimento in a large saucepot. Bring to a boil and cook until thick, (approximately 30 minutes), stirring often. Remove and discard spice bag.
Pack both onions and cooking liquid to cover in hot jars, leaving 1/2 inch headspace. Remove air bubbles. Wipe jar rims. Adjust lids. Process 10 minutes in a Boiling Water Bath.
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The recipe says that this will yield about 8 pint jars. I ended up with almost nine, the ninth jar being about 3/4 full went straight into the fridge to use right away.

Another bonus is the two quarts of onion juice that I drained off before adding the salt. I thought that if I freeze the juice into ice cubes, this will make an easy way to pop some flavor into soups or stews, etc. I also saved about a quart of the onion juice that was extracted after the salt was added. Why throw this away when I can make good use of it? :)
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This recipe and others like it are found on Cooks.com.